Monday, August 7, 2017

Putin and Trump, Two Leaders with Similar Ethics, have Been Driven Apart like Hitler and Stalin by Circumstance, Pastukhov Says

Paul
Goble

Stanton, August 7 – Twenty-five
years ago, Russian writer Yury Nagibin argued that Stalin and Hitler were two
figures who, as a result of their common amorality, were set to become the best
of friends but who, as a result of circumstances, in fact became the worst of
enemies.

Something similar is happening now
between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, St. Antony’s College historian
Vladimir Pastukhov says, two leaders who despite some fundamental differences
are ethically similar and thus view their own actions in much the same way (bbc.com/russian/blog-pastoukhov-40804883).

In a new commentary, Pastukhov
argues that the two “are united by a utilitarian attitude toward law …
suspicious of humanism, justice … and other Christian values” which neither
sees as a guide to “practical action” in general or “even more” in political
life.

“They consider any institutions as
chains from which any sensible individual must seek to free himself from as
quickly as possible. On the other hand, they are guided by ‘understandings,’ an
unwritten code of behavior … [which set] rules of the game between those who
believe in only one God – power.”

Both leaders, he continues, “are to
a great degree more the products of specific financial ‘clans’ than they are
representatives of specific social forces. Both are more similar to political
freebooters than to the leaders of political democracies.”

And both “believe less in democracy
than in justice. They are prepared to use [democracy] but they are not prepared
to serve it. Both appeal to ‘the peopple’ over the heads of the elites, and
both, being fully part of the rotten elites, position themselves as enemies of
the establishment (oligarchate).”

Putin understood this commonality
first and recognized that it presented “an unprecedented opportunity for the leaders
of Russia and America (and even more broadly the West) to speak with one
another in a common language.”And that
was aided by the back that both Putin and Trump “sincerely believed that their ‘personal
diplomacy’” would bring each enormous dividends.

According to Pastukhov, Putin was
ready to sacrifice Asad, a Syrian leader he really doesn’t need, in exchange
for Trump’s recognition of Putin’s right “to restore the USSR if not dejure
then at least de facto.” Given Trump’s
indifference to who controls Crimea, the US leader was only looking for a
suitable way to get something he deems “’essential.’”

There was no
shortage of Russian involvement in last year’s US elections precisely because
Putin saw such an amazing opportunity. Indeed, the Russian historian argues, the
Kremlin viewed Trump as one of their own, as “a kind of Armand Hammer of our
time” ready to do business and thus someone who could be played and hopefully
outplayed.

For Putin’s goal to be achieved, it
was not required that Trump knew about Russian support in advance, Pastukhov
says. That could be presented to him later as Putin’s “gift” and something that
would increase Russian influence in Washington even more. But things didn’t
work out as Putin hoped.

While both Putin and Trump are
ethically similar, they are nonetheless embedded in completely different
political systems. “Putin for Russia is an entirely organic figure. His views
and values are entirely and completely part of the Russian political tradition.
He is culturally identical to the chief Russian type and in a certain sense
really is a leader of the majority.”’

Trump in contrast is “a real ‘enfant
terrible’” for the American political tradition, and his election generated in response
“a real ‘institutional storm’” as the immune system of the American political
elite sought to expel this hostile bacillis” and restore what the American
elite believes America to be.

Putin didn’t expect this reaction
because he “cannot recognize the right to exist of any other reality besides
that which he is personally accustomed to. But Trump was put in a difficult
position as well. “With all his soul, he wanted to do ‘a deal’ with Putin and
reach agreements. But in the existing situation, that would be political
suicide.”

And Trump’s “instinct for self-preservation”
has led him to discover not only that “Ukraine is not Russia” but that “neither
is America.” As a result, he has transformed himself even more than those
opposed to him from “the great friend” of Moscow to his sworn enemy and his
attitude from “almost love” to “almost hatred.”

In many ways, Pastukhov says, “this
is simply Nixon in reverse, who all his life was an anti-communist but ended
with détente and the Helsinki Final Act.” But this has the ironic consequence
that the two leaders who wanted to reach agreement are moving “step by step”
toward the global confrontation” they had wanted to avoid.